Google Experiments with Primary Election Coverage

According to Newsosaur, Google is running an online publishing project in Australia. Using maps, videos, web gadgets, and more, the Australia Votes site will let people get election news with a perspective that neither newspapers nor broadcast media offer. :

Australia Votes signals a significant strategic shift on the part of Google to become a primary web destination, as opposed to restricting itself to its historic role as a supplemental, though highly valuable, research tool. As such, it eventually could compete head to head with not only the likes of CNN, the Washington Post and all the other media biggies but also with the tiniest of tiny weeklies.

As I've been saying for a while, Google has all the characteristics of a publisher, not of a simple advertising medium, and is willing to be inventive in ways that traditional media don't appear to be, or possibly are too fossilized to approach:

The Google election project, an elegant mashup of Google’s arsenal of search, mapping, video, widget and other technologies, is a preview of how all but the most technologically recalcitrant consumers will expect to get political – and many other types of – news in the future. In addition to delivering a wealth of well-packaged election information and interactive tools, Google has created four content-pushing widgets and a number of ways for users to express their opinions via forums and home-brewed video.

News organizations have to be sweating at this point - but then again, so does Google. It can profit mightily from pasting links to content, and it is starting to license wire content. But the company could easily become a commodity purveyor, just as many newspapers are today. This may be one of several initial steps, but don't be surprised if Google starts hiring people to provide its own coverage.

As I've heard through the grapevine, it's already considering doing so in specialized areas. After all, if you know so much about your users and you want to keep them interested, then you have to be sure they get the content they want in the areas that attract them. But what if you aren't finding the depth of coverage necessary, particularly in niche topics, and you've got gazillions of dollars? It's cheap enough to hire experienced journalists who could provide coverage, and would probably relish the chance to dig into something more than "regular" media often allow. I wouldn't be surprised to see the beginning of "Google Coverage" - whether feature articles, video, or commissioned blogs - within the next 18 to 24 months.